Photo: David McClister
For southern rock ‘n’ roll fans still mourning the Allman Brothers’ demise and Lynyrd Skynyrd’s recent retirement, salvation isn’t too far away. Although those legends can never be replaced, Georgia outfit Blackberry Smoke have spent the best part of a decade keeping the genre they pioneered alive, kicking and – most importantly - relevant.

It’s virtually impossible to do anything completely new in the realm of rock'n'roll, especially when some of the greatest acts of all time have already pioneered, innovated and explored the genre to its very limits and beyond. Does that mean like-minded young bands should just lazily imitate their predecessors or even give up? Hell, no. They need to follow the example set by the Sheepdogs, write the best songs possible and spice them up with as many stylistic and instrumental flavours as their talents will allow.

There won’t be many musicians with an address book as impressive as Doyle Bramhall II’s. From Elton John and Roger Waters to Sheryl Crow and Alain Toussaint, not to mention his position as Eric Clapton’s right-hand man for nearly two decades, the Texan born singer, songwriter, guitarist and producer has often been the go-to collaborator for some of the greatest names in the business. Such a role inevitably meant putting his own career on hold, but with the release of ‘Shades’ – his second solo album in two years - he’s finally taking centre stage.

As they continue to enjoy one of the most surprising musical resurrections of recent times, alternative rockers 10 Years appear to be defying F Scott Fitzgerald’s suggestion that there are no second acts in American lives.

Photo: Don VanCleave
It may sound like wishful thinking, but in an ideal world music would begin and end with nothing but a great song. There’d be no record companies or publications trying to shape our tastes. Image would be unimportant. Sales irrelevant. Radio airplay redundant. The only thing that would matter would be the creativity of the musician and how they reflect themselves through their art.

We’re all probably guilty of taking our favourite songwriters for granted; expecting them to pour their trauma into art we often consume purely for the purpose of entertainment. But do we ever truly consider what they must have been through to produce such deeply personal music? And would we be comfortable releasing the contents of our lives for the whole world to hear and critique?

If you abandoned the Magic Numbers once the afterglow of their early success faded, you’d be well advised to return to the fold and renew your allegiance. With their radiant harmonies once again set to stun, ‘Outsiders’ is a superbly crafted comeback that mixes together guitar-driven rock ‘n’ roll, swinging ‘70s glam and heartfelt Americana to produce a sound that, if we all play it loudly enough, will bring forth some glorious summer sunshine.

Photo: Harry Reese
Lots of rock ‘n’ roll groups try to embody the mythic notion that they’re some kind of swaggering last gang in town with a special camaraderie. While many start off that way, over time reality usually bites and they end up becoming decidedly unromantic business concerns with a clear pecking order. It’s refreshing to discover that, after 17 successful years, Black Stone Cherry remain the same four friends who grew up together in Kentucky.

Photo: Joseph Cultice
When he broke onto the scene in the 1980s Joe Satriani was surfing with the alien, but over the course of the last decade the six-string guru has been riding a wave of popularity that continues to pick up pace. If we were to use Satch’s storming resurgence as a barometer, any claims the guitar is losing its lustre are clearly built on a bedrock of hot air.

Press to MECO are one of a number of interesting, slightly off-kilter alt-rock bands bubbling under in the UK at the moment, with their new record ‘Here’s to the Fatigue’ pushing them into ambitious new territory.

Jim and Loz Beck are brothers from Chipping Norton who have been playing music together since the former was 12 and coaxed the latter, who was 8, onto the drumkit. It wasn’t until Jim moved to London in 2013, though, that they started making a racket under the name Cassels.

There are are lot of people in this car park. You’ve got a healthy contingent of common or garden emos, along with a handful of crusty lifers venturing out for rare public appearances. Then you’ve got curious kids in H&M Nirvana shirts who want something more. There’s a smattering of norms. Some metal maniacs. Some punks. Several people in onesies. They’re packed cheek by jowl for one reason: Milk Teeth.

Following their appearance at the Isle of Wight festival in 2015, You Me At Six decided to take a break, albeit a short one. A few casual hangouts aside, the five friends waited until the autumn to pick up at drummer Dan Flint’s home studio and start laying the groundwork for the follow up to 2014’s ‘Cavalier Youth’.

He’s a singer, a songwriter, a revered guitarist and a musical force of nature. That’s Warren Haynes. From stepping into Duane Allman’s sizeable shoes when the Allman Brothers reformed in 1989, to his time with rock ‘n’ roll jam band Gov’t Mule and a stream of highly eclectic collaborations, his work has always been marked by a multi-faceted sense of artistry.

The second album from the Winery Dogs might aptly be titled 'Hot Streak', but it's a term that's equally applicable to the astonishing career of their drummer, Mike Portnoy. Since his acrimonious departure from Dream Theater in 2010, the virtuoso sticksman has been involved in a calculator-busting number of projects and collaborations, indulging in many different musical styles without missing a beat.

“She perfectly embodied Witch Baby, my purple-eyed, drum-playing, wild-hearted heroine,” is how author Francesca Lia Block describes Elizabeth le Fey, who makes music as Globelamp. Block’s much-loved Dangerous Angels novels have long provided creative impetus for Le Fey, whose world is one where flights of fancy and dark fairytale twists are the norm. “When I was a teenager I read the books and I always liked the imagery of being inside a globelamp,” Le Fey said. “She describes it as seeing the world lit up from the inside out.”

On the surface, it appears that we don’t know much about Baby in Vain. We know that guitarists Lola Hammerich and Andrea Thuesen and drummer Benedicte Pierleoni are all under 25 and from Copenhagen. We know they don’t have a bass player. But, in reality, all you really need to know is that they play squalling grunge of the goosebump-inducing variety and that, one EP in, they’re already a formidable proposition.

Writing melancholy lyrics that play upon a revelrous outlook on life and love, Will Joseph Cook’s keys and chords conjure feelings of hope and energy. Down to earth and honest, his songwriting flair and funny guy finesse are on point.

Sunset Sons appear haloed by kaleidoscopic stage lights as an enigmatic wave of euphoria passes over the crowd. Currently touring ‘Very Rarely Say Die’, their debut album, the band are halfway through a hectic 14 date UK schedule.

On Three Trapped Tigers’ new record, ‘Silent Earthling’, there’s a track called Rainbow Road, named after the notorious racing circuit on the video game Mario Kart. It might be the most perfect song title of the year.

Skating Polly formed just over six years ago, when Kelli Mayo was nine and her step-sister, Peyton Bighorse, was 14. They recorded their debut album, ‘Taking Over The World’ in 2011 and since then have done their best to make its title a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Conrad Keely has fronted ...And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead, through various lineup changes, for over 20 years. The band, which began as a duo when Keely paired up with old friend Jason Reece in Austin, Texas in the early ‘90s, soon expanded, fleshing out their abstract take on rock through an unpredictable live presence.

Over 15 years ago, Claudio Sanchez created The Amory Wars, a series of comics set in the planetary group Heaven's Fence. The books tell a complex story that revolves around Coheed and Cambria Kilgannon, their son, Claudio, and the villainous Wilhelm Ryan and General Mayo Deftinwolf. The first seven of Sanchez’s albums with his band, Coheed and Cambria, also delved headfirst into the narrative. Their latest release, ‘The Color Before The Sun’, though, broke the chain of concept albums when it emerged last autumn.

Photo: Tom Barnes
As a music journalist, it’s dangerously tempting to be lazy when it comes to interviewing an artist or band for the second (or third) time. For all the talk of progress, you can usually rely on the core elements of their sound to remain the same. “How have you evolved on this record?” Well, once they’ve reeled off a few buzzwords, the real answer is usually “not much”. But still the headline will suggest this new record is their “boldest, most ambitious project to date”.

They may be a power trio featuring some of the most respected and well travelled musicians on the block, but the time has come to surgically remove the 'supergroup' label from the Winery Dogs' back. This is no flash-in-the-pan vanity project for Mike Portnoy, Billy Sheehan and Richie Kotzen and with two superb albums of soulful, melodic and instrumentally adventurous hard rock under their belts, as well as hundreds of live shows, they are every bit the bona fide band.

Photo: TX63 Music Photography
More often than not, blues musicians are like the proverbial fine wine and their flavour and class increases as they rack up miles on the clock. That is certainly the case with Danny Bryant, whose latest album, 'Blood Money', completes his journey from rough-around-the-edges outsider to genuine title contender.

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Widespread critical acclaim for their chart-bothering debut album. The patronage of Jimmy Page. Supporting a little known band called the Rolling Stones. It's been a wildly successful few years for the Temperance Movement, and that heady ride looks set to continue courtesy of 'White Bear', their hugely impressive sophomore effort.

You know Panic! At The Disco. You’ve heard the one about closing the goddamn door. And the one about it somehow being nine in the afternoon. Then there’s that time they covered Bohemian Rhapsody and it was actually really good.

Queen Kwong might be a distinctive name, but it’s not a household one. In truth it’s never likely to be. As with many great things, this band will be misunderstood by many but truly adored by others. That’s just fine by Carré Callaway, who has spent the last few years battling through the LA scene to get to this point.

If you've had the pleasure of listening to ‘Battle Scars', the exceptional new album from charismatic blues guitarist Walter Trout, you'll know it's an incredibly honest, unsettling and ultimately inspiring account of how a life-saving liver transplant brought him back from the brink. During his recent UK tour we caught up with Walter to discuss the record and learned how a brush with a higher power has forever changed him.

Clean Cut Kid played their first gig only eight months ago. Yet here they are, hours removed from a set at Cardiff’s Undertone as part of Sŵn Festival, with headline slots at Reading and Leeds’ BBC Introducing Stage and a buzz-heavy breakthrough single, Vitamin C, already under their collective belt.

The music world is awash with male singer-songwriters. Acoustic guitars and raspy vocals are part of the staple diet of just about every radio station you’d care to mention, with the charts holding up a mirror to their dominance of the airwaves.

With ‘Adult’, Blacklisters have once again released one of the albums of the year, repeating the feat after unleashing their debut, ‘BLKLSTRS’, on an unsuspecting world back in 2012. Stereoboard caught up with the band’s frontman, Billy Mason-Wood, to discuss power ballads, sad angry men…and Phil Collins.

There is a strong argument to be made that the digital age is over, at least in a musical context. We live at a time when young artists have infinite access to libraries and catalogues and genres, to the point where, theoretically, anyone can at least attempt to call up the ghosts of music past. Where new electronic sounds once bore a mystical appeal, many artists now use technology to discover and create music that is ‘classically human’.

There’s a “Wildy fest” going on in the World’s End. The place is packed with Wildhearts tour t-shirts, slapped across the backs of the young and, well, not so young. The band still has die hard fans and they are out in force to see their talisman, Ginger, play a career-spanning acoustic set as part of Camden Rocks.

When I was 21, I worked in a joke shop in one of Cardiff’s arcades. I was hungover and reliving the night before when Thrash Unreal began to bellow out of the shop’s stereo. The verse - “She’s going ‘til the house lights come up, or her stomach spills on to the floor.” - seemed to speak directly to me, and I was hooked. My mate told me I could have the CD as the band had “sold out” and “were shit now, anyway”. What the fuck did he know?

Amid the hustle, bustle and occasional rustle of Space Raiders crisp packets, a gaunt figure stands alone. Clad in black and sporting a mask Doctor Doom would wear if he went to Hell, a Nameless Ghoul lingers in the Reading press tent. His band, Ghost, will headline The Pit stage later in the evening, treading the boards at the same time as Metallica and, er, the Wombats.

Photo: Evaan Kheraj
After tentatively opening a sleepy eye, Cyril Hahn’s mind immediately switches to coffee and breakfast. Pulling on his standard day to day uniform- black t-shirt, jeans and white socks - he peers out of the window at the concrete Berlin landscape beyond.